I think President Tinubu has performed exceptionally - Peter Obi

Peter Obi has sarcastically praised President Bola Tinubu for performing exceptionally

The Presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 general election, Peter Obi, sarcastically said he thinks President Bola Tinubu has performed exceptionally as Nigeria’s ruler.

Obi displaying sarcasm said this on Thursday morning while giving an appraisal of President Tinubu’s one year in office.

“I think President Tinubu has performed exceptionally well in his first year in office,” Obi told Arise TV.

“He has kept his campaign promises. In his words, ‘I will continue from where Buhari stopped’ and he has done so.”

Obi had earlier in his Democracy Day post on Wednesday urged Nigeria to re-examine its democratic journey, saying the country has deteriorated into “classical state capture” rather than a government for the people.

As the country marked 25 years of uninterrupted democracy, Obi lamented that Nigeria’s democratic experience has been marred by leadership failures.

He said these failures have resulted in uncontrolled systemic corruption, high levels of insecurity, lack of freedom of speech, increasing poverty rates and unprecedented levels of hunger and hardship, which remain unsolved and are growing geometrically.

Obi noted that “true democracy” should be people-oriented, where the rights of citizens are respected, the laws are obeyed, and the leaders remain accountable to the people but the opposite is the case for Nigeria.

The former Anambra State governor added that the country is not truly democratic and has only produced the vices enumerated above.

Obi noted that the country’s democracy index score of 4.23 ranks it low on the Global Democracy Index, while its corruption perception index ranking of 145th out of 180 countries shows a high level of corruption in Nigeria.

In the Rule of Law Measurement, he noted that the country has ranked 120th out of 142 countries measured in the World Justice Project (WJP) Rule of Law Index, indicating that Nigeria suffers from gross disobedience to the rule of law.

“As our dear nation marks Democracy Day today, commemorating 25 years of striving to be a democratic country, the fundamental question for all of us remains: Are we truly democratic?,” Obi asked.

“An unexamined life is not worth living, so it is now time to re-examine what we have been doing over this quarter of a century.

“Democracy, as we know, is the government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

“While we may say that in 1999 we started in earnest in the right direction, today we have deteriorated into what can be classified as classical state capture. Instead of benefiting all, it has become a deprivation to all.”